These stories can also be heard on Sunday mornings around 10 am on WILD 102’s “Look Back in Time” program. Each week’s radio story will be posted here on our website.
Weekly radio stories are researched, compiled, and read by Sheila Winstead, RCHS Board Member.
July 7, 2024
Today I’ll continue the story of Fay Young, Pioneer and Boat Skipper as it was contributed to Hazel
Wahlberg’s compilation of stories called “Remembrances”. Details were provided by Julius Anderson’s
family.
Last week we heard about Fay’s decision to purchase the Nina after a miraculous recovery from a
lingering illness.
After two years of piloting on the lake, Fay met and fell in love with Esther Degarman, a student nurse
from Stephen, Minnesota. He proposed, and she accepted, they were married on November 22, 1922, and
left by train for a honeymoon in New Orleans. Unlike most honeymooners, the bride returned alone
while the groom continued southward and spent a year on a rubber plantation in Bogota, Columbia.
But once again Lake of the Woods beckoned, so Fay and Esther settled on the wild shores of the lake
and began a lifetime of service to the area.
Fay was not just a pilot, he was a personality. He wore a tan shirt and pants, and was never without his
captain’s hat and the walrus tooth that hung from a leather fob on his belt. He wore leather moccasins
with wool socks in the winter for warmth. He wore leather moccasins with wool socks in the summer to
keep the mosquitoes off his ankles.
He and Esther, who was now a registered nurse and a practicing midwife, began their family of girls. Fay
was born in February of 1924, Kaye in April of 1928, and May in May of 1930.
May died at the age of two while they were living on Flag Island. She probably died of tularemia, no one
will ever know for sure as she went into convulsions and was dead within hours. Her little corpse was
only one of many Fay carried on his boat during his career.
Fay’s ability to argue logic was unparalleled He had, in his middle years, learned to pilot an airplane and
earned a private pilot’s license, which required renewal at regular intervals. In his middle fifties, he
journeyed to Fargo, North Dakota to take his annual exam. The C. A. A. office was on an upper floor of
the Black Building. One of the requirements was to pass a depth perception test. The testing device
resembled a pinball machine and was lit with fluorescent lights. Fay made two attempts at
accomplishing the test and failed. He countered by telling the examiners that flying an airplane was not
done under fluorescent lights and that if the testing equipment were out in God’s own natural light he
was sure he would pass the test. The long and awkward device was stood on end and trundled to the
elevator. It was carted out the doors on the ground floor to the lawn and the test was again attempted
in God’s own light. To the surprise of all concerned except Fay, he passed the test.
Life had assumed a regular pattern for Fay at this time. The seasons were announced not by dates on
the calendar, but by the freeze-up and break-up of Lake of the Woods. During the season when he was
on the lake, Fay worked a seven-day week. He took his boat to the island section each Monday, back to
Warroad on Tuesday, to the islands on Wednesdays, and back again on Thursdays. On Fridays, he made a round trip
to the islands and back to Warroad. On Saturdays, he went to Kenora and returned on Sundays.
If it was calm, the trip from Warroad to Oak Island took four hours. If it was windy, it took an hour or
two longer. In certain strong winds, Fay would take the boat east across the south shore of the lake, and
then tack back north and west for a better advantage cutting into the waves. If Fay didn’t go out
because of the wind, nothing else moved either, because there weren’t many winds that stopped Fay H.
Young.
As Fay approached what to other men would be retirement age, his pace remained constant. At the age
of seventy-one he began to have physical problems, so with some urging from his family he went to
Rochester for repair and reconditioning. Warroadites despaired. The word went out that he would never
run the Resolute again.
He came home from the hospital thin, weak, and exhausted. But once again the lake worked its magic,
and within six weeks he was again running the boat. And so it went until he was eighty. Then his eyes
developed cataracts, for which he had surgery, but as happens so often, his vision was left permanently
impaired. But he still knew his boat, his lake, the winds, the swells, and the needs and fears of his
passengers. He had always run with a “first mate”, and in the final years his first mate assumed more
responsibility, but Fay was still the captain.
A combination of age, failing health and boat trouble put Fay ashore at last in 1968. His boat continued
on for several more years under the piloting of his last “first mate”. His career was at an end. And soon
so was his life. He died in Warroad in November of 1973. He made a deep and lasting impression on
everyone who knew him.
To those of us who knew him well and respected him much, his oft-repeated “No matter how many
years I spend on this earth, I will always be Young” was nothing but the truth.
There have been so many wildfires around the United States already this year. Roseau County wasn’t
always immune from them either.
Today’s story about the Soler Township Fire of 1910 was written by Rudy Billberg for inclusion in the
Roseau County Centennial Book in 1995. He thanks Clara Halverson, Lillian Kelly Nelson, and Hector
Graff for information used in the story.
In the summer of 1910, the sun shone brightly on Roseau County. At first, it was greatly appreciated, but
the sun soon became a concern. No rain fell for weeks. The drainage ditches were nearly dry and a short
distance to the north of Haug in Soler Township, the Roseau River moved sluggishly on its way to join
the Red River of the North.
The main occupation in this area was raising cattle, sheep, and horses. Usually good hay was plentiful,
but this year the crop was stunted, short and turning prematurely brown. From sunup to sundown, men
cut and stacked hay. Soon, however, they were forced to go north into the bog and cut swamp-grown
”wire grass” generally considered little better than nothing.
As the men drove their teams homeward, they were in high spirits, for now they were through with this
year’s haying. A hard season was behind them. Next winter the hay would be hauled home by horses
pulling a “bobsled” with a mounted hayrack.
The drought continued and by early fall all in Northern Minnesota were concerned about possible
wildfires. Roseau County was in grave danger.
By the end of September, the fire threat was extreme. Men from Soler Township hitched their teams to
wagons with hayracks and drove north to the Roseau River. Here they made camps and prepared to do
what they could to contain the smoldering peat fires and protect their haystacks.
In Soler Township, Syver Hagen and Tom Kelly lived on adjoining farms about three miles south of the
river. Syver’s 19-year-old son, Edor, and Tom Kelly, who was 47, were among those camped on the
riverbank. About October 6, Ed and Tom walked back to the farms to carry in some more food.
The next day they started back. Smoke was thickening, and the sun was a red ball in the sky as the two
men hurried along the trail toward the river.
Shortly before the men reached the river, the wind began to blow out of the southwest and soon rose to
hurricane force. Across Blooming Valley Township it came, a roaring inferno, with a roll cloud of smoke
before it. Now leaping flame showed through the dense smoke and the two terrified men ran for their
lives.
As the story is told today by Clara Hagen Halverson, the 90-year-old sister of Edor Hagen, and 89-year-
old Hector Graff who still lives in Soler Township, the two men became separated while running into the
smoke and fire. The grass fire passed swiftly but left burning moss under their feet. Their shoes began to
burn and smoke blinded their progress. Before them were burned out holes in the peat that had been
smoldering all summer. In the bottom of these were four to six inches of glowing coals.
Edor stumbled into one of these. He screamed as the red hot moss and peat burned his clothing and
body. He rose to run again but soon fell a second time. This time, too, his body was seared and burned.
He kept his hair from catching fire by pulling his derby hat down over his face. Once more he fell and this
time he knew that if he fell again he would not be able to get up.
On the riverbank, outside of the line of fire, Edor’s frantic screams were heard by Julius Graff, Hector’s
father and his brother-in-law Carl Hellickson. They now saw him and were able to run to his rescue. But
first they jumped into the river to thoroughly soak their boots and trousers. They were then able to get
Edor and carry him back to the river. He was left in the care of other men while Graff and Hellickson
soaked themselves again and went in search of Tom Kelly.
Tom Kelly’s lot was also agonizing and terrifying. He did not fall as often, but his heavy, knee-high
leather boots burned slowly and literally cooked his feet and lower legs.
When Julius and Carl got back to the fire’s edge, they heard his terrible groans. He had just fallen but
was quickly picked up and taken to the river. The boots of both men had to be cut from their feet.
Cooked and swollen flesh came off with the boots and Kelly’s shin bone was bare for several inches
above his foot.
The two men were taken to their homes in a hayrack deeply bedded with hay. The pain of bouncing
along over the rough swamp trail was agonizing and the groans of the sufferers were constantly heard.
I’ll read the rest of this story at time next Sunday.
Thank you to 
for letting us share our county’s history with your listeners by donating air time, studio time, and production staff every week.